Re: Fat cells and Time Magazine

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 8/18/04 10:29:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

However, for some unknown reason, fat people's

brains seem to be in a state of " leptin resistance " where the leptin doesn't

have it's desired effect.

Maybe it's from too much leptin? Perhaps people develop habits that lead to

overstuffing themselves deliberately even when they feel full, and once they

reach a certain threshold of excessive fat, they become resistant to the leptin.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>Maybe it's from too much leptin? Perhaps people develop habits that lead to

>overstuffing themselves deliberately even when they feel full, and once they

>reach a certain threshold of excessive fat, they become resistant to the

leptin.

>

>Chris

I suspect it is something like that ... kinda like insulin resistance, too much

of

anything the body gets " used to it " .

Of course I also think the gliadin that is so pervasive in our diet mucks up

the villi in the upper intestine, which might be WHY people stuff themselves

past when they are full. Or the glutamates and other " flavor enhancers " . It

is next to impossible to " overstuff " yourself if your appestat is working ...

when researchers force normal-sized people to eat " too much " they really

have a hard time of it.

Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 16:07:35 EDT

ChrisMasterjohn@... wrote:

> In a message dated 8/18/04 10:29:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

> heidis@... writes:

> However, for some unknown reason, fat people's

> brains seem to be in a state of " leptin resistance " where the leptin doesn't

> have it's desired effect.

> Maybe it's from too much leptin? Perhaps people develop habits that lead to

> overstuffing themselves deliberately even when they feel full, and once they

> reach a certain threshold of excessive fat, they become resistant to the

leptin.

>

> Chris

>

Wait. You are not suggesting that the human will has anything to do with

it, are you? You mean people can...God forbid...dare I say it...sin...or

maybe " do something that is not good for them " is a better way to say

it...for the sheer short term pleasure of it, even when their body (and

mind) is telling them otherwise?

Huh. What a novel concept :-)

Kick the Habit: Don't Vote!

http://tinyurl.com/439vl

Eat fat, get thin... lift big, get small.

" They told just the same,

That just because a tyrant has the might

By force of arms to murder men downright

And burn down house and home and leave all flat

They call the man a captain, just for that.

But since an outlaw with his little band

Cannot bring half such mischief on the land

Or be the cause of so much harm and grief,

He only earns the title of a thief. "

--Geoffrey Chaucer, The Manciple's Tale

[Guest guest]

>> Maybe it's from too much leptin? Perhaps people develop habits that lead to

>> overstuffing themselves deliberately even when they feel full, and once they

>> reach a certain threshold of excessive fat, they become resistant to the

leptin.

>>

>> Chris

Well, the question is, WHY do they overeat? For skinny people

it is next to impossible to overeat ... they did an experiment to

FORCE folks to overeat and they found it very difficult to do.

Animals and people (gluttonous though we may be) don't overeat

normally, CAN'T overeat normally. Something has to interfere

with the appestat.

Which BTW, seems to be working again in myself, and even

though I've been looking forward to pigging out all day,

I just can't do it. It's like trying to eat a dozen hard boiled

eggs ... maybe I could train myself for an egg eating contest,

but it's hard to do. I end up eating almost the same number

of calories each day, no matter what I choose to eat. Last

night though I ate out, Mexican, more than usual. Today I

can't eat much at all. I feel fine, just not hungry.

So , maybe I'm less sinful than I was yesterday? <G>

When I asked the doctor how I could avoid " overfeeding "

my baby he just laughed. He said " you can't overfeed a baby! "

Yeah, he was right, when they eat too much they just throw up!

Somewhere between babyhood and adulthood the system

gets out of kilter ....

Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/1/04 5:18:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

slethnobotanist@... writes:

<<<<<Wait. You are not suggesting that the human will has anything to do with

it, are you? You mean people can...God forbid...dare I say it...sin...or

maybe " do something that is not good for them " is a better way to say

it...for the sheer short term pleasure of it, even when their body (and

mind) is telling them otherwise?>>>>>

______

~~~~~~> ,

Don't be silly. I'll never get into grad school if people think I think like

that! Didn't science already prove that free will is an illusory mental

construct, a function of the mind/brain, which, in turn, is created by an

interaction between genes and the environment? Who's to say, anyway? They also

proved that reality is a social construct and others of them have proved that it

is

a mental construct, so I think they disproved " proof " anyway. ( " What is

truth? " -- Pontius Pilate, post-modernist?) Anyway, ideas contribute to

inequality

because some people are better at having them than others, and thus have an

unfair advantage in competing for them, so thinking them up should at least be

discouraged, if not banned.

Chris

[Guest guest]

On Mon, 6 Sep 2004 10:06:49 EDT

ChrisMasterjohn@... wrote:

> In a message dated 9/1/04 5:18:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

> slethnobotanist@... writes:

> <<<<<Wait. You are not suggesting that the human will has anything to do with

> it, are you? You mean people can...God forbid...dare I say it...sin...or

> maybe " do something that is not good for them " is a better way to say

> it...for the sheer short term pleasure of it, even when their body (and

> mind) is telling them otherwise?>>>>>

> ______

>

> ~~~~~~> ,

>

> Don't be silly. I'll never get into grad school if people think I think like

> that! Didn't science already prove that free will is an illusory mental

> construct, a function of the mind/brain, which, in turn, is created by an

> interaction between genes and the environment? Who's to say, anyway? They

also

> proved that reality is a social construct and others of them have proved that

it is

> a mental construct, so I think they disproved " proof " anyway. ( " What is

> truth? " -- Pontius Pilate, post-modernist?)

> Anyway, ideas contribute to inequality

> because some people are better at having them than others, and thus have an

> unfair advantage in competing for them, so thinking them up should at least be

> discouraged, if not banned.

>

> Chris

Yes, you are absolutely right. I think the solution below is a good way

of banning unfair advantage:

" The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only

equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody

was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else.

Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was

due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to

the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper

General "

The " handicapping " worked partly as follows:

" Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't

think about anything except in short spurts. And , while his

intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio

in his ear. He was required by law to wear it all times. It was tuned to

a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter

would send out some sharp noise to keep people like from taking

unfair advantage of their brains. "

from _on Bergeron_ by Kurt Vonnegut, quoted by Murray Rothbard in

his essay _Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature_

Kick the Habit: Don't Vote!

http://tinyurl.com/439vl

Eat fat, get thin... lift big, get small.

" They told just the same,

That just because a tyrant has the might

By force of arms to murder men downright

And burn down house and home and leave all flat

They call the man a captain, just for that.

But since an outlaw with his little band

Cannot bring half such mischief on the land

Or be the cause of so much harm and grief,

He only earns the title of a thief. "

--Geoffrey Chaucer, The Manciple's Tale

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/2/04 2:20:11 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

Well, the question is, WHY do they overeat? For skinny people

it is next to impossible to overeat ... they did an experiment to

FORCE folks to overeat and they found it very difficult to do.

_____

~~~~>That's interesting, because in eating contests, skinny people often win,

because their stomachs are more capable of distension due to lower visceral

fat levels.

____

Animals and people (gluttonous though we may be) don't overeat

normally, CAN'T overeat normally. Something has to interfere

with the appestat.

_____

~~~~> I believe there's a functioning appestat, but it can certainly be

overridden by will. I've eaten well past the point where my appestat said

" STOP!!! " in the past, because I wanted to. People tend to overeat on holidays,

because there's so much good food, and because eating becomes a social event,

etc.

The appestat I believe just puts " stop eating pressure " on the person, like

" sleep pressure " increases when you're awake too long. But just like will

power can override the pressure to sleep, will power can override the pressure

to

stop eating.

Usually, most people don't *want* to overeat past a certain point of stop

eating pressure. But certain people who might enjoy unusual amounts of pleasure

from food, or who use food as a way to relieve unusual amounts of stress,

psychological tension, etc, may derive a marginal benefit from eating an extra

portion of food beyond where the marginal deficit of stop eating pressure would

be prohibitive in a normal person.

Most people don't like the uncomfortable feeling of eating too much, so that

feeling causes them to stop eating, but it can still be present and working in

someone who nevertheless decides to keep eating because something they derive

from the food is of more value to them than avoiding the feeling of

discomfort.

While physiological processes have *influence* over our decisions, humans

are, still, fundamentally *acting* and *deciding* creatures.

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/8/04 8:01:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

christiekeith@... writes:

But let's be real. Who among us can, literally every moment of

every hour of every day, rely on strength of will and our intellect and our

previous decisions, and NEVER deviate from them?

_____

~~~~~> We always depend on our will and a conscious execution of it

throughout the day, but if the assumption is that the will is in conflict with

physiological urges, then it is likely that we will consciously execute

decisions that

satisfy those urges... but then it could be argued that the person " wills "

that the urges be fulfilled... and it starts to get semantic and philosophical.

I'm not sure, but it seems like you may have misunderstood me to say that

people who have a dysfunctional appestat should be able to garner sufficient

willpower to entirely compensate the problem. That's not what I was saying.

I was addressing a possible mechanism for a (perhaps one of many) *cause(s)*

of appestat dysfunction. Heidi posted an article that mentioned that cells

can become resistant to leptin, and she posited the question of why the leptin

resistance would occur. I suggested that perhaps the leptin resistance occurs

be chronically elevated leptin levels, like can happen with insulin. An

implication of that would be that people were overeating even before the

appestat

dysfunction set in. So, this *speculation* of mine would imply a scenario

where someone with a working appestat would overeat continually till they were

more than stuffed. The appestat could be working in that they feel full, and

they don't need any more food to gain satiety, but for whatever reason the

person

either develops a habit of overeating, derives some peculiar level of

pleasure from overeating, or relies on overeating as a psychological crutch.

So, I'm not suggesting that someone with a dysfunctional appestat should be

able to rely on will power alone to avoid overeating. Instead, I'm suggesting

that someone with a *functional* appestat could *choose* to overeat, or be

prompted to eat by physiological urges unrelated to the leptin-appestat

mechanism, or whatever, that could create a situation in which leptin levels

were

chronically elevated, causing cells to become resistant.

Such a scenario would probably also lead to insulin resistance, since insulin

is also stimulated by food, and if leptin levels are chronically elevated,

the same is probably also true for insulin.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>> While physiological processes have *influence* over our decisions, humans

are, still, fundamentally *acting* and *deciding* creatures. <<

Certainly that is true, but I think your analysis is oversimplified.

Yes, everyone overeats now and then, such as on Thanksgiving or at a

restaurant, but this is not even remotely enough to affect your appestat, or

your weight over any amount of time. Or frankly, your nutritional status.

<G>

What matters is what you do generally, not rarely.

And if your appestat is malfunctioning, the reality is, it's very hard

BIOLOGICALLY to realize you've eaten enough, or that you aren't hungry, or

that you need to eat. The connection between a physical need to eat and

other prompts to consume food, such as boredom, loneliness, or just the

desire to taste something, has been disrupted. ALL your decisions are being

made under the constant influence of blood sugar flucuations (which are

biochemical but have effects that feel emotional) or cravings (ditto!) or a

sincere inability to recognize if something is or isn't " hunger. " What IS

that odd feeling in your tummy? Who the hell knows, when the whole system is

busted! Are you thirsty? Tired? Stressed? Do you have ANY idea?

most likely, you DO know the answers to these questions when you

consider them. Those of us with eating disorders and weight problems - those

of us whose appestats are not working - honestly don't. It's like that

pathway in our brain is just not going where it's supposed to be going.

The only real choice we have is to decide intellectually what we are going

to eat and not deviate from that, regardless of how our bodies respond. That

is the key of the " willpower, " or " decision-based " response to eating

problems. But let's be real. Who among us can, literally every moment of

every hour of every day, rely on strength of will and our intellect and our

previous decisions, and NEVER deviate from them? Who doesn't get tired or

stressed, or forget to plan a meal, or run out of money to pay for whatever

it is you're SUPPOSED to be eating? None of us. And when in situations of

stress, or fatigue, or when rushed or sick, we don't tend to make our best

decisions no matter who we are. And for people with eating disorders and

serious weight problems, all issues around food become even more

emotionally-charged and stressful, which just perpetuates a negative

emotional state. So inevitably, we falter, we fail, we backslide, we mess

up. Which also feeds the downward spiral.

This is why Atkins worked so well for me: It restored the functioning of my

appestat and removed the 95 percent of my problem with food that was

biochemical rather than genuinely emotional. My " decision making " and " will

power " (which is formidable) were able to handle that 5 percent, probably

could have handled even more. But they simply weren't enough, and couldn't

possibly have been enough, to overcome the 95 percent that was biochemical.

No one is that strong, and no one should have to be that strong when other

strategies will work better than the exercise of willpower.

I can fight a craving for a few hours. I can fight a couple bad days a month

around my period. I can get through a normal amount of stress, and a few

crises in a year. What I can't do is resist cravings and hunger and a

complete lack of feedback from my body as to whether or not I'm hungry,

full, whatever, every waking moment of my life. NO ONE can do that. It's

impossible. And anyone who doesn't know this simply hasn't actually

experienced it.

Having gone from having no functioning appestat to almost overnight having

one, I am excruciatingly aware of the difference. This is not about will

power or decisions, at least, not about being able to use them as a weight

control strategy. It's doomed to failure in all but the most extraordinary

of individuals.

Christie

[Guest guest]

>> Such a scenario would probably also lead to insulin resistance, since

insulin

is also stimulated by food, and if leptin levels are chronically elevated,

the same is probably also true for insulin. <<

I understand now, thanks for clarifying. I do think something like that

happens, in fact.

Christie

[Guest guest]

>

Chris:

>~~~~>That's interesting, because in eating contests, skinny people often win,

>because their stomachs are more capable of distension due to lower visceral

>fat levels.

>____

Also because skinny people often eat MORE! It seems some folks

who are skinny are that way because they have lousy digestion.

I got to know a wonderful woman who was sooo marvelously

built, and found out she really, really does not digest food well.

A lot of celiacs have been lifelong skinny people too, the ones

people admire, they eat a TON of food and never get fat.

Some folks who are skinny are just well balanced, in tune with

their environment. Others are basically having problems.

>Animals and people (gluttonous though we may be) don't overeat

>normally, CAN'T overeat normally. Something has to interfere

>with the appestat.

>_____

>

>~~~~> I believe there's a functioning appestat, but it can certainly be

>overridden by will. I've eaten well past the point where my appestat said

> " STOP!!! " in the past, because I wanted to. People tend to overeat on

holidays,

>because there's so much good food, and because eating becomes a social event,

etc.

>The appestat I believe just puts " stop eating pressure " on the person, like

> " sleep pressure " increases when you're awake too long. But just like will

>power can override the pressure to sleep, will power can override the pressure

to

>stop eating.

I think there is a " feast " feature of the appestat, that says " This is a feast

and I

will overeat " . But people can't override it past a certain point, just as they

can't override sleep. Actually that is a good example ... the reason we

can get by with less sleep is very likely a function of artificial light. When

we lose power, no one in my family can stay awake long, tho normally

we are night owls.

Actually the feast/fast cycle is probably the normal one for humans,

if food is plentiful, pig out! But you are not a good example, because you

seem to be able to eat a huge number of calories. What I find is that

when I eat " real " food and track calories, the calories average out

very exactly (i.e. I might pig out one day, but I'll eat less the next) except

for certain foods (nuts being my big problem food).

>Usually, most people don't *want* to overeat past a certain point of stop

>eating pressure. But certain people who might enjoy unusual amounts of

pleasure

>from food, or who use food as a way to relieve unusual amounts of stress,

>psychological tension, etc, may derive a marginal benefit from eating an extra

>portion of food beyond where the marginal deficit of stop eating pressure would

>be prohibitive in a normal person.

It would be an interesting experiment to see if it really is " pleasure " or

" stress "

or something else. Recently I figured out the reason I eat a LOT is when

I am faintly nauseated ... which doesn't happen much now, but it used

to be commonly the case. I get nauseated, I eat. I would NOT have told you

that though, in the past. I would say " Sheesh, that cheesecake looks good! " .

Similarly, fat boys who get high glycemic breakfasts pig out more at lunch than

fat boys who get omlettes for breakfast. Neither group has good " self control "

and both are " eating to satiation " ...

>Most people don't like the uncomfortable feeling of eating too much, so that

>feeling causes them to stop eating, but it can still be present and working in

>someone who nevertheless decides to keep eating because something they derive

>from the food is of more value to them than avoiding the feeling of

>discomfort.

But who decides that? How do you measure it? I always thought I

was basing my decisions on " values " but it seems there was

a lot more involved. It's like the right/left hemisphere tests ...

it seems one hemisphere will decide based on emotion ( " I like red cars "

while the other gives a plausible explanation for the decision ( " it

will have good resale value " ). I tend to think the body chemistry-meter

makes a lot of decisions that we explain as " desire " or " pleasure " ... so

when you NEED salt, you will decide salty food tastes great.

>While physiological processes have *influence* over our decisions, humans

>are, still, fundamentally *acting* and *deciding* creatures.

We certainly have a lot of overriding decision making power. But I challenge

you to stay awake when someone shoots morphine in you to put you

to sleep ... or to stay sane under the decision of LSD. I don't know where

exactly chemistry kicks in, but it certainly does! I don't think your average

skinny Frenchman or Japanese is any different, at heart, than a 400-lb vastly

overweight American. Certainly the French and Japanese are not less self-

indulgent or more moral. Something else has to be going on.

>

Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/9/04 2:22:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

I think there is a " feast " feature of the appestat, that says " This is a

feast and I

will overeat " .

______

Then essentially all you are doing is redefining a conscious act of will as

an unconscious act, writing out the existance of volition and decision-making.

If the appestat is defined as " that which drives a person to eat whatever

amount of food he eats, " then its definition has become so broad as to become

trivial. Any definition that is this broad becomes meaningless.

~~~~~>If A chooses to eat beyond satiety, and B eats the same but never

becomes full or eats beyond satiety, and both become overweight, then clearly

there

is a fundamental physiological difference between the two.

If the appestat is considered to be what controls satiety and the amount of

food needed to reach it, it has a sufficiently narrow definition to have some

important meaning. But if it is considered to be what controls the *entire*

decision-making process as to what to eat and what not to eat, to the point that

it cannot distinguish between someone who deliberately eats more than the

body senses it needs and someone who has an inappropriate physiological sense of

what her body needs, then, having no distinguishing power, it has no useful

definition at all.

Defining it as such serves no function except to deny the existence of a

conscious will and volition.

______

But people can't override it past a certain point, just as they

can't override sleep.

______

~~~~> I doubt that either is true. What is much more likely, is that people

*don't* override it past a certain point. I personally, would lose the will

to stay awake after about 24 hours of not sleeping. The primary reason is I

have no reason to give me the will to stay awake. As the sleep pressure (a

genuine unconscious mechanism) grows, it becomes less and less valuable to me to

override it. On the other hand, if I were threatened by life and death, my

will to live would help me override it much longer. Or, if I were practicing

asceticism out of a deep love for God, as many Saints have, my will would also

be

stronger. St. Palamas, for example, only slept a half hour a day

continually. Someone who had no particular purpose to do so, no deep love for

something or need for something driving them to fight the physiological pressure

to sleep with their will power, would give in to a much smaller amount of

sleep pressure.

Likewise, if someone offered me a million dollars to eat some particular

amount of food, I would have much more will to defeat the physiological

mechanisms

driving me to stop eating, than if I were just trying to eat extra to gain

weight, which would, in turn, give me more will to defeat those mechanisms than

if I had no purpose to overeat at all.

The fact that different circumstances involving rewards that are valuable to

the conscious person who will enjoy them will allow them to defeat *different

degrees* of appestat pressure indicates that conscious will is a factor in the

decision.

________

Actually that is a good example ... the reason we

can get by with less sleep is very likely a function of artificial light. When

we lose power, no one in my family can stay awake long, tho normally

we are night owls.

_______

~~~~> There are to phenomena at work here. One is that there light inhibits

melatonin synthesis. So the sleep pressure is actually physiologically

greater without the artifiical light.

The other is that there's less things to do. If I had nothing important to

do, I would give in to a small amount of sleep pressure. But if I have to

study for an exam, or I am reading something I'm interested in, or want to watch

a

tv show that I like, this increases the reward that I consciously value for

staying awake. If the reward is valued to a higher degree than warding off the

physiological sleep pressure, I will stay awake. If the sleep pressure

grows, and the reward remains equal, I will at some point give in, because I

value

warding off the sleep pressure more than the reward of wakefullness.

Similarly, if the reward of wakefulness decreases (as in your example), and the

sleep

pressure remains the same, I will give into sleep at some point where the

reward value of wakefullness sinks below the value of warding off sleep

pressure.

In your example, both the sleep pressure increases, and the reward value of

wakefulness decreases-- so naturally, the latter sinks below the value of

warding off the former much faster.

But the simple fact that I will give in to sleep pressure at *different

degrees* depending on whether or not there is anything valuable to me worth

staying

awake for indicates that there is more to the decision equation-- namely my

own values and a conscious deicion incorporating them-- than the simple

mechanism of sleep pressure. To control for this, we can look at people who

slept

less during times preceding the advent of artificial light, who had something

worth staying awake for (such as prayer, all-night vigils, etc), despite having

no mechanism (such as artificial light) of artificially reducing sleep

pressure.

________

Actually the feast/fast cycle is probably the normal one for humans,

if food is plentiful, pig out! But you are not a good example, because you

seem to be able to eat a huge number of calories. What I find is that

when I eat " real " food and track calories, the calories average out

very exactly (i.e. I might pig out one day, but I'll eat less the next) except

for certain foods (nuts being my big problem food).

_____

~~~~> But this is on days when you have no value attached to overeating.

That's the point. Of *course* if one finds no value in eating beyond satiety,

one will give in to appestat pressure easily. But, like I said, most people

will eat beyond this point and become overstuffed during holidays, because the

reward value of eating changes. The food is better and prepared more carefully,

so there is a greater pleasure value in eating the food, and there is a

*cultural* attachment to the feast as something of social value, so people eat

for

*social* reasons (which clearly have *nothing* to do with the appestat, if it

is considered a physiological mechanism for the control of satiety).

If people overeat for cultural and social reasons, this clearly indicates

they can override appestat pressure when the marginal value of eating an

additional amount of food contains a greater than normal amount of value due to

its

*cultural* and *social* value, thus allowing it to exceed the marginal

anti-value of eating additional food due to appestat pressure.

______

[snip]

Similarly, fat boys who get high glycemic breakfasts pig out more at lunch

than

fat boys who get omlettes for breakfast. Neither group has good " self control "

and both are " eating to satiation " ...

____

~~~~> Then it is irrelevant. My point is that the appestat, which I am

considering to be the physiological mechanism that controls the amount of food

needed to induce satiety, can be overriden by conscious will. This example

involves two appestats that are functioning differently. If the latter is

eating

too much and becoming obese, we can call the appestat dysfunctional. I am

referring to the phenomenon of eating *after* satiety has been reached.

______

Quoting me:

>Most people don't like the uncomfortable feeling of eating too much, so that

>feeling causes them to stop eating, but it can still be present and working

in

>someone who nevertheless decides to keep eating because something they

derive

>from the food is of more value to them than avoiding the feeling of

>discomfort.

Heidi:

<<<<But who decides that? How do you measure it? I always thought I

was basing my decisions on " values " but it seems there was

a lot more involved. It's like the right/left hemisphere tests ...

it seems one hemisphere will decide based on emotion ( " I like red cars "

while the other gives a plausible explanation for the decision ( " it

will have good resale value " ). I tend to think the body chemistry-meter

makes a lot of decisions that we explain as " desire " or " pleasure " ... so

when you NEED salt, you will decide salty food tastes great.>>>>

_____

~~~~> This is an impossible chicken-and-egg question regarding the

interaction of mind and brain, and whether conscious will is produced

physiologically,

or whether it is simply reflected physiologically. It isn't necessary to

answer the questions in this discussion. Beyond that, it isn't really a

meaningful

question, because it assumes that " consciousness " is immaterial and therefore

immeasurable. I don't find any logic in the assumption that spiritual and

metaphysical phenomenon are necessarily non-measurable and unquantifiable and

unobservable with respect to their source. It is an assumption, and merely

that. It is unjustified to hold this baseless assumption and then use evidence

that we can quantify or observe physiological phenomena directly related to

metaphysical phenomena that are observable and quantifiable, and thereby claim

the

metaphysical phenomena do not exist.

It is clear that whatever amount of mind is attributable to brain, the mind

is more than the sum of the parts of the brain. If neurons involved in

affection can be quantified, the affection itself, such as love, or hate,

cannot.

Therefore, even if metaphysical phenomena are inextricably and inseparably

linked to physical phenomena, they still exist as metaphysical phenomena, so the

question is really moot.

If I value the pleasure of food, we can, for the purposes of calculatory

discussions, accept that value as a given. It matters not *why* I value the

pleasure of food, or whether there is a physiological phenomena that relates to

my

valuing fitting in to a social organization (such as a family, which in turn

values getting together and eating big meals) (of course there is!), it simply

matters that for whatever reason fitting into this social organization and

accomodating its norms *is* a value to me.

Whatever the physiological basis for my assimilation into familial norms, it

is clearly not the *appestat* that drives this assimilation. Therefore, my

point that non-appestat related values, such as cultural and social values, can

be involved in overriding the appestat, is unrelated to the physiological

source of those values (if there is a physiological source.)

The fact that values and physiological are linked is already implicit in

everything I've been arguing. I've been saying that the value to avoid appestat

pressure or sleep pressure is a value that is considered in the same way as the

value to accomodate familial norms (for example) or the value to stay awake

to pray to God. The point here is that there is some volitional

decision-making that takes place that measures these values and decides which

outweighs the

other(s).

That there may be some physiological phenomenon that takes place during this

decision (and undoubtedly there clearly IS) has no bearing on the fact that it

takes place. And whether this physiologicla phenomenon *causes* or

*reflects* that conscious decision is an entirely irrelevant and unnecessary

philosophical debate of a totally different nature.

All that is important to THIS discussion is that there ARE values of

different sources (including sources besides appestat pressure) factored into

the

amount one eats and there IS a conscious decision to eat or not eat an

additional

portion of food and this IS a calculation of the relative value that eating or

not eating that portion yields, derived from the aforementioned various

values that are factored into the equation.

_______

Quoting me:

>While physiological processes have *influence* over our decisions, humans

>are, still, fundamentally *acting* and *deciding* creatures.

Heidi:

We certainly have a lot of overriding decision making power. But I challenge

you to stay awake when someone shoots morphine in you to put you

to sleep ... or to stay sane under the decision of LSD. I don't know where

exactly chemistry kicks in, but it certainly does! I don't think your average

skinny Frenchman or Japanese is any different, at heart, than a 400-lb vastly

overweight American. Certainly the French and Japanese are not less self-

indulgent or more moral. Something else has to be going on.

______

But the morphine has such a dramatic effect of raising sleeping pressure that

it could be said that no one has other values strong enough to resist it. In

the latter case, the LSD is intefering with the very mechanisms of conscious

decision-making that are dependent upon sanity, so it's a different case. But

people definitely can have *some* power over either indulging in its effects

or maintaining *some* degree of composure, depending on the dosage.

A lower dose of morphine that would produce sleep in a normal person can

definitely be resisted in someone with the will to stay awake. I've done it

with

benadryl. A couple benadryl pills will knock me out (or at least would have

when I used to take them sometimes), but I've deliberately stayed awake with

effort.

The fact that the same dose can put A who has no value in staying away to

sleep and can not produce sleep in B who values resisting its effects and

staying

up, or that a higher dose (yielding a greater sleeping pressure) can produce

sleep in B, but a lower dose cannot, simply validates my point that there are

several independent values, one being giving in to sleeping pressure, and the

other(s) being the various rewards for staying awake. The fact that if

sleeping pressure is increased to an enormous extent produces sleep reliably

doesn't

conflict with this fact any more than someone fearing for their very life

produces wakefulness reliably does. In any calculation weighing two factors,

one

is sure to triumph if it is increased by several factors over the other one,

which does not conflict with the fact that the calculation takes place at all.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>______

>

>Then essentially all you are doing is redefining a conscious act of will as

>an unconscious act, writing out the existance of volition and decision-making.

>If the appestat is defined as " that which drives a person to eat whatever

>amount of food he eats, " then its definition has become so broad as to become

>trivial. Any definition that is this broad becomes meaningless.

Ummm ... this is really making it into a black and white issue. It

isn't " all or nothing " . Sure, I have volition etc. But the intake

of food vs. the amount of exercise etc. is a huge mathematical/chemical

endeavor ... some scientists can do it accurately in a lab, but

most people just can't. They have a brain that does it automatically.

When folks get fat, most of them are NOT eating hugely abnormal

amounts of food, just a bit more than their metabolism needs.

Further, part of the appestat regulates the metabolism, so

if the person eats a lot, it burns more calories. The human

has NO conscious control over that.

So basically, the *normal* human way of eating is to eat til

you get full, from foods that look good. Given that everything functions

normally, and the food choices are all decent, that algorithm works fine.

The idea that we have to regulate consciously the amount and types

of food we eat is a purely abnormal, modern construct. Like Price

said, an animal eating the food it was designed to eat never gets fat.

>If the appestat is considered to be what controls satiety and the amount of

>food needed to reach it, it has a sufficiently narrow definition to have some

>important meaning. But if it is considered to be what controls the *entire*

>decision-making process as to what to eat and what not to eat, to the point

that

>it cannot distinguish between someone who deliberately eats more than the

>body senses it needs and someone who has an inappropriate physiological sense

of

>what her body needs, then, having no distinguishing power, it has no useful

>definition at all.

>

>Defining it as such serves no function except to deny the existence of a

>conscious will and volition.

I don't know how they originally defined it ... basically what they found is

that most

people do stay within a narrow range of weights (even if they are very

overweight,

they stay at the same range of overweight). If you make them try to eat more,

they lose weight when they stop eating more. If you make them exercise, the

" set weight " goes down, no matter if they change their diet. If you give them

a pill that changes their appetite, they lose weight.

Now those same people can, obviously, gain or lose weight by following

a strict diet ... the body builders do this to an extreme, weighing every ounce

of food and tweaking their diet based on the results. So sure, volition can

overcome the unconscious food choices that most humans have used

forever, and obviously there is always some conscious choice of food

(to avoid poisons, if nothing else!). But until very recently, there wasn't

a huge range of choice for most humans, and most of the choices were

all decently healthy, and probably the " choice morsels " (like brain, marrow,

liver) were also the healthiest, so greed and health were not diametric

opposites. Also until recently, virtually no one got very overweight ...

being " too skinny " was more of a problem.

>______

>But people can't override it past a certain point, just as they

>can't override sleep.

>______

>

>~~~~> I doubt that either is true. What is much more likely, is that people

>*don't* override it past a certain point. I personally, would lose the will

>to stay awake after about 24 hours of not sleeping.

Some folks DO manage to stay awake for long periods ... and start hallucinating!

There are also folks who, for some unknown reason, don't seem to need

to sleep. There are also folks who can fast for 60 days ... the hunger seems to

stop after a certain point. But really, if you've ever talked to someone who

is REALLY overweight and tried everything, these are not people with lack

of motivation. This also obviously isn't something you've stuggled with

personally.

But the argument between " will " and " physiology " is an old one that

certainly hasn't been settled ... the mystics claim they can do stuff

like survive in buried coffins or live on air ... and the saints have

all kinds of miracles attributed to them. And you have cases like people

lifting cars in an emergency too. These are the extreme cases though.

The case I was talking about is: why do so many Americans overeat,

when folks in other countries and other times do not? The answer

(to me, and to some researchers) seems to be that something has

changed about the appestat. I really don't think Americans suddenly

became less moral or more greedy for food suddenly (certainly the

French seem to enjoy their food more than we do, if anything).

Certainly people *could* be more careful about their diet etc.

but those are individual choices, not really applicable on a large

scale unless you are making the point that we have suddenly become

less careful about eating. I'm really not trying to make the point

that humans have no free will.

> _____

>

>~~~~> But this is on days when you have no value attached to overeating.

>That's the point. Of *course* if one finds no value in eating beyond satiety,

>one will give in to appestat pressure easily. But, like I said, most people

>will eat beyond this point and become overstuffed during holidays, because the

>reward value of eating changes. The food is better and prepared more

carefully,

>so there is a greater pleasure value in eating the food, and there is a

>*cultural* attachment to the feast as something of social value, so people eat

for

>*social* reasons (which clearly have *nothing* to do with the appestat, if it

>is considered a physiological mechanism for the control of satiety).

It isn't clear that " eating to satiety " or " eating beyond satiety " is what

causes overweight

though. In people like me (and from Christie's posts, I'd include her) we can

eat all day and never reach close to satiety. This started suddenly, when I

was pregnant, and it took all my willpower to not constantly stuff my face.

I was clearly eating more than I *needed* but not to satiety. OTOH I have

friends

who can pig out all they want and never get fat. They eat more than they

need too, I think. Getting overstuffed doesn't seem to hurt them at all.

Cultural eating probably does have something to do with it, esp. the " 3 meals a

day "

thing, which is why I think the Warrior Diet works so well for some of us.

But going on the WD hasn't changed my willpower or lack of it, it just

changed how my appestat works, so I don't have to fight hunger all the

time. Christie's description sounds similar. She uses her willpower ... to

choose a diet that works with her body chemistry. In neither case do

we need to argue over the existence of will or the soul etc. I still eat

beyond satiety (whatever that is, I'm not real sure when I reach it)

but I eat less. My societal and cultural values haven't changed that

I've noticed, I'm just skinnier.

______

>All that is important to THIS discussion is that there ARE values of

>different sources (including sources besides appestat pressure) factored into

the

>amount one eats and there IS a conscious decision to eat or not eat an

additional

>portion of food and this IS a calculation of the relative value that eating or

>not eating that portion yields, derived from the aforementioned various

>values that are factored into the equation.

Sure, I didn't say there weren't.

>

>A lower dose of morphine that would produce sleep in a normal person can

>definitely be resisted in someone with the will to stay awake. I've done it

with

>benadryl. A couple benadryl pills will knock me out (or at least would have

>when I used to take them sometimes), but I've deliberately stayed awake with

>effort.

Sure, like I said, I'm not saying there is no " will " . You can't know though,

what

is " overwhelming " for another person, or what their will level is.

Schizophrenia was, in the past, considered a moral problem, lack of will.

Now it's known to be chemical. In " A Beautiful Mind " the man manages

to live a normal life by ignoring his hallucinations. But these bits of

courage don't change the epidemiological profile of a population. If country

A gets schizophrenia a lot and country B does not, country B is doing something

right (as the percentage of people with lots of will power and courage

is likely the same in both countries).

Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

>______

>

>Then essentially all you are doing is redefining a conscious act of will as

>an unconscious act, writing out the existance of volition and decision-making.

>If the appestat is defined as " that which drives a person to eat whatever

>amount of food he eats, " then its definition has become so broad as to become

>trivial. Any definition that is this broad becomes meaningless.

I had a much longer reply to this, but I think I can condense it ... the theory

of the appestat and the theory of free will are not really in conflict. The

fact is, humans so a lot of stuff unconsciously. Breathing, walking,

brushing your teeth. Eating is, by and large and for most people,

not a very conscious act. People don't think all that much about

what they are eating, or how much they are eating.

Nevertheless, most people seem to have a " set weight " and

they don't vary much from it for years and years. (Or at least,

that was true 30 years ago, things have gotten different).

People skip meals, they pig out, they eat different foods

at different times, but in most times and places they stay

within the same weight range. For some people, their " set weight "

seems to be higher than is healthy, but they will still

maintain that weight. The theory of the appestat is that

a given person will tend to stay at the same weight, because

the brain tends to motivate the person to eat more or less,

and also it tends to crank the metabolism up or down as

needed.

Obviously, a person *can* override this by conscious control.

The Sumo wrestlers force themselves to eat and eat, and

they get fatter. People can be forced to eat more and they

get fatter. People can go on diets. But most of the time,

people who override the appestat go back to their " set weight "

as soon as they stop the conscious control, just like they

go back to regular breathing once they stop doing Yoga breathing.

But that doesn't affect the current discussion. If country A is

full of fat people, and country B is full of skinny people, then

one of the following would be true:

1. *Something* about country A tends to make the appestat

work in favor of fatness or

2. A lot of people in country A decided to overeat.

3. A lot of people in contry B are deciding to eat properly

4. Country B has a famine.

People in this country suddenly got a LOT fatter in the last 40

years. I'm old enough to have seen it. I don't think they all

suddenly started lacking self-control or eat beyond satiation ...

in my case, I SUDDENLY started getting ravenously hungry

always, to the point I had to use all my self control to eat

reasonably well. Yeah, my appestat broke! It seems to be broke

in lots of people. My guesses as to why would include:

1. Timing of meals. Eating 3+ meals a day, all loaded with the

wrong kinds of foods sets up an insulin cycle.

2. Empty calories fool the appestat.

3. Non-caloric sweeteners fool the appestat.

4. Fructose is a weird food, in corn syrup form.

5. Gluten affects the villi, which sample the food for the appestat.

6. Lack of sleep and stress affect cortisol levels.

7. Any food intolerance affects cortisol levels.

All those things would tend to make a person eat " too much " ...

but they also work by affecting the appestat. Which would set

up a vicious cycle ... the person would then be resistant to

leptin which the fat produced. The leptin would normally

affect the appestat in the other direction, so the person

would eat less.

And yeah, a person with conscious control could eat less, or

better, choose better foods. But again, the studies are on

a group level, not talking about the choices a smart individual

might make.

-- Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/9/04 10:52:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

When folks get fat, most of them are NOT eating hugely abnormal

amounts of food, just a bit more than their metabolism needs.

____

~~~~~>Perhaps it would be good to reiterate the point we started at, since

we've gone so far into tangents that we might be losing track of the point for

which we're exploring the tangents.

I had said that leptin resistance might occur from chronically excessive

levels of leptin. This would or could imply that people were eating beyond

satiety chronically, leading to excessive levels of leptin present chronically.

This would imply that people could overeat even *with* a working appestat, which

then would cause the appestat to malfunction. This would be similar to

someone abusing the insulin mechanism by causing chronic excessive levels of

insulin, causing that system to malfunction.

(It occurs to me now that simply eating normal (meaning to and not beyond

satiety) amounts of food all day long could also cause this.)

_____

Further, part of the appestat regulates the metabolism, so

if the person eats a lot, it burns more calories. The human

has NO conscious control over that.

_____

~~~>But I never suggested anyone had conscious control over their metabolism.

I merely suggested that they could wilfully eat beyond satiety.

______

So basically, the *normal* human way of eating is to eat til

you get full, from foods that look good. Given that everything functions

normally, and the food choices are all decent, that algorithm works fine.

The idea that we have to regulate consciously the amount and types

of food we eat is a purely abnormal, modern construct. Like Price

said, an animal eating the food it was designed to eat never gets fat.

______

~~~~> I never suggested we had to consciously regulate our appestat. I

suggested that we could consciously disobey the appestat.

______

I don't know how they originally defined it ... basically what they found is

that most

people do stay within a narrow range of weights (even if they are very

overweight,

they stay at the same range of overweight). If you make them try to eat more,

they lose weight when they stop eating more. If you make them exercise, the

" set weight " goes down, no matter if they change their diet. If you give them

a pill that changes their appetite, they lose weight.

______

~~~~> But the point I'm trying to make concerns behavior *before* the

appestat allows more food than needed for metabolism, not after.

_______

Some folks DO manage to stay awake for long periods ... and start

hallucinating!

There are also folks who, for some unknown reason, don't seem to need

to sleep. There are also folks who can fast for 60 days ... the hunger seems

to

stop after a certain point. But really, if you've ever talked to someone who

is REALLY overweight and tried everything, these are not people with lack

of motivation. This also obviously isn't something you've stuggled with

personally.

______

~~~~> It isn't, but none of this concerns the point I'm making, which is the

behavior that occurs *before* someone becomes overweight.

______

The case I was talking about is: why do so many Americans overeat,

when folks in other countries and other times do not? The answer

(to me, and to some researchers) seems to be that something has

changed about the appestat.

______

~~~~> I know this is your point, and I agree with it. My point was never

meant to disagree with your point at all. It was simply an additional

contribution to the discussion, about one possible mechanism for the dysfunction

of the

appestat.

______

I really don't think Americans suddenly

became less moral or more greedy for food suddenly (certainly the

French seem to enjoy their food more than we do, if anything).

______

~~~~> Eating large portion sizes seems to have been part of American culture.

Stuart Mill commented that Americans ate unusually large amounts of

food when he visited in the 19th century.

______

Certainly people *could* be more careful about their diet etc.

but those are individual choices, not really applicable on a large

scale unless you are making the point that we have suddenly become

less careful about eating. I'm really not trying to make the point

that humans have no free will.

_____

~~~~> I didn't think you were, but I made the comment to apply to your broad

definition of the appestat at one juncture in our discussion that seemed to

imply that it was part of the appestat system when people eat beyond satiety. I

made the point that the appestat system is supposed to regulate satiety, so

there should be a distinction between people who overeat to gain satiety, and

people who overeat beyond satiety. In the first case, the appestat is not

regulating the food intake properly; in the second case, it is, but the person

is

willfully disobeying it.

_____

It isn't clear that " eating to satiety " or " eating beyond satiety " is what

causes overweight though. In people like me (and from Christie's posts, I'd

include her) we can eat all day and never reach close to satiety. This started

suddenly, when I

was pregnant, and it took all my willpower to not constantly stuff my face.

I was clearly eating more than I *needed* but not to satiety. OTOH I have

friends

who can pig out all they want and never get fat. They eat more than they

need too, I think. Getting overstuffed doesn't seem to hurt them at all.

______

~~~~> It may be that preganancy adjusted your appestat because you are

*supposed* to gain fat and eat extra food when pregnant and nursing. Someone

posted

before that women who become overweight have healthier babies. In the other

cases where people never reach satiety though overeating, this seems to be a

dysfunction of the appestat-- which is a point on which you and I agree

completely. In the cases concerning your last point, if the people aren't

getting

overweight, it isn't clear to me that they are eating more than they need to.

They probably just need more food (as evidenced by the fact that they aren't

becoming overweight.)

_______

Cultural eating probably does have something to do with it, esp. the " 3 meals

a day " thing, which is why I think the Warrior Diet works so well for some of

us.

But going on the WD hasn't changed my willpower or lack of it, it just

changed how my appestat works, so I don't have to fight hunger all the

time. Christie's description sounds similar. She uses her willpower ... to

choose a diet that works with her body chemistry. In neither case do

we need to argue over the existence of will or the soul etc. I still eat

beyond satiety (whatever that is, I'm not real sure when I reach it)

but I eat less. My societal and cultural values haven't changed that

I've noticed, I'm just skinnier.

______

~~~~>These cases, again, support the existence of an appestat and the point

that the appestat can function properly or improperly, which is not a point I'm

disputing.

______

Sure, like I said, I'm not saying there is no " will " . You can't know though,

what

is " overwhelming " for another person, or what their will level is.

Schizophrenia was, in the past, considered a moral problem, lack of will.

Now it's known to be chemical. In " A Beautiful Mind " the man manages

to live a normal life by ignoring his hallucinations. But these bits of

courage don't change the epidemiological profile of a population. If country

A gets schizophrenia a lot and country B does not, country B is doing

something

right (as the percentage of people with lots of will power and courage

is likely the same in both countries).

______

~~~~> I agree that schizophrenia is not a moral problem and has chemical

bases.

______

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/9/04 10:38:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

I had a much longer reply to this, but I think I can condense it ...

_____

~~~~> I'm not sure what happened, but I think you sent it, because I just

replied yesterday to another email from the same thread from you.

_____

the theory

of the appestat and the theory of free will are not really in conflict.

_____

~~~~> I think my other reply probably made clear thatt I don't think they

are. I hope I clarified my position in it, but I'll reiterate it here for the

benefit of an uncluttered and clear statement:

I don't disagree with anything you said in this email, or with the theory of

the appestat at all. I was suggesting, rather, that some of the things that

may lead to appestat dysfunction are within conscious control. And, basically,

everything you mentioned is. I would add to the list overeating beyond

satiety, which was my original point. That and eating to satiety all day long

probably both could lead to chronically elevated leptin, which might be, I

speculate, a cause of leptin resistance.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>~~~~~>Perhaps it would be good to reiterate the point we started at, since

>we've gone so far into tangents that we might be losing track of the point for

>which we're exploring the tangents.

Good idea.

>I had said that leptin resistance might occur from chronically excessive

>levels of leptin. This would or could imply that people were eating beyond

>satiety chronically, leading to excessive levels of leptin present chronically.

>This would imply that people could overeat even *with* a working appestat,

which

>then would cause the appestat to malfunction. This would be similar to

>someone abusing the insulin mechanism by causing chronic excessive levels of

>insulin, causing that system to malfunction.

I agree that *could* in theory happen, and probably does with, say,

Sumo wrestlers. In our society, it's more likely that the *type* of

food fools the appestat, which has already been chronicalled

in lab animals. For instance, mice who get artificial sweetener

in their water get fat, but mice who get sugar water don't. Premature

infants tend to get fat later in life, probably because of being

fed the wrong stuff too early. Fructose is a problem, and gluten

glomming onto villi has got to be a problem. And low-nutrient

low-fiber food would also tend to fool the appestat (or the body

might just decide it needs more food to get the nutrients).

With all the obvious villians, people working to override the

appestat chronically goes way down on my list of culprits.

Also because when they do studies to FORCE people to

overeat, the people tend to go back to their previous

weight rather quickly, and the researchers say it was terribly

difficult to get the participants to overeat. One CAN override

the appestat, but it's not easy for most people.

So basically I agree with you, overeating can cause " leptin resistance " ,

but then you have to figure out " why are people suddenly overeating

so much? " The obvious culprit (since human nature hasn't changed

much in thousands of years) is the type of food. Goats, for example,

eat a lot of grass, but they stop when they are full. But they will

eat themselves to death on oats. Which is more or less the way they

get beef to get fat quickly ... the beef will gorge on corn where they

won't on grass. The goat and beef appestat doesn't really handle

grains.

>(It occurs to me now that simply eating normal (meaning to and not beyond

>satiety) amounts of food all day long could also cause this.)

I agree, which probably is more of a problem. I don't think the appestat is

designed

for eating all day, in people or in lab animals.

>~~~~> But the point I'm trying to make concerns behavior *before* the

>appestat allows more food than needed for metabolism, not after.

>_______

Exactly what I'm trying to get at. The appestat should *not* allow

more food. The fact it does means something isn't right. For example:

try eating 20 hard boiled eggs. Well, maybe YOU could. Most people

cannot. Which is why things like hardboiled eggs are used for eating

contests ... the appestat kicks in very well for hardboiled eggs and it

is difficult for most people to eat more than one or two. However,

those same people can drink a Big Gulp, no problem, which has far

more calories.

Now OK, a sufficiently motivated person could eat 20 hard boiled

eggs, but that is an outlying case. For most people, at most times,

people don't overeat hardboiled eggs. Or soup, as it turns out. In

fact, if they give a random group of people a list of certain foods

and say " eat all you want " ... they will eat about what they need, and

less than what they would eat if they eat the SAD.

So the point is ... before leptin resistance kicks in, people can and

do overeat in our culture, but there is something wrong that they

can do that so easily.

>~~~~> I know this is your point, and I agree with it. My point was never

>meant to disagree with your point at all. It was simply an additional

>contribution to the discussion, about one possible mechanism for the

dysfunction of the

>appestat.

>______

OK.

>

>~~~~> Eating large portion sizes seems to have been part of American culture.

> Stuart Mill commented that Americans ate unusually large amounts of

>food when he visited in the 19th century.

>______

It may be part of our culture, but I'd have to wonder why. Since

we changed our diet, my family has decided to eat less ...

I haven't changed anything in terms of what is served, and really,

we don't get many cultural influences. But my dh has gone

from eating a whole pizza to eating 2 slices.

> ~~~~> I didn't think you were, but I made the comment to apply to your broad

>definition of the appestat at one juncture in our discussion that seemed to

>imply that it was part of the appestat system when people eat beyond satiety.

I

>made the point that the appestat system is supposed to regulate satiety, so

>there should be a distinction between people who overeat to gain satiety, and

>people who overeat beyond satiety. In the first case, the appestat is not

>regulating the food intake properly; in the second case, it is, but the person

is

>willfully disobeying it.

>_____

OK, but maybe it depends on the definition of " satiety? " I just had some

beef ribs for a " snack " , then I was cooking dinner for everyone else.

But for the life of me, I was so full I could NOT eat anything else and

food just looked lousy to me right then. THAT to me is " satiety " ... I

just could not stuff another bite in my mouth. " Willfully disobeying " at

that point just seems silly ... I really couldn't, it would make me gag.

OTOH I have had the feeling where I'm " full " but still not " satisfied "

and go on to have dessert etc. I'm not sure what that is called ...

certainly I've had enough calories, but I'm not satisfied enough

to quit.

> ~~~~> It may be that preganancy adjusted your appestat because you are

>*supposed* to gain fat and eat extra food when pregnant and nursing. Someone

posted

>before that women who become overweight have healthier babies. In the other

>cases where people never reach satiety though overeating, this seems to be a

>dysfunction of the appestat-- which is a point on which you and I agree

>completely. In the cases concerning your last point, if the people aren't

getting

>overweight, it isn't clear to me that they are eating more than they need to.

>They probably just need more food (as evidenced by the fact that they aren't

>becoming overweight.)

>_______

I do think pregnancy is geared for weight gain! The fat is supposed

to go away when you nurse. But for me the hunger never really

went away.

I'm not sure about the weight meaning they eat ok. SOME people probably need

more calories, but some other people probably have a metabolism

that kicks into high gear and prevents the fat from being stored,

or they just don't absorb fat when it isn't needed. Then suddenly

they get fat (usually when they hit 40 ...). I kind of think many

Americans eat way too much, constantly, but their bodies adjust

and make do for a long time, until they hit some wall. I basically

think it has to do with the kind of food ... since the successful

restaurant chains are the ones that sell the most food, they tend

to market foods that make you eat a lot ... maybe MSG has some

part in that, and the types of fat and carbs ... but I've never felt

" satiated " from a restaurant meal (esp. fast food chains).

The issue there isn't that the appestat is broken so much

as that it isn't meant for today's foods.

>

Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

>~~~~> I'm not sure what happened, but I think you sent it, because I just

>replied yesterday to another email from the same thread from you.

>_____

Yeah, our emailer is " under construction " ... i.e. we are having

network issues ...

>~~~~> I think my other reply probably made clear thatt I don't think they

>are. I hope I clarified my position in it, but I'll reiterate it here for the

>benefit of an uncluttered and clear statement:

>

>I don't disagree with anything you said in this email, or with the theory of

>the appestat at all. I was suggesting, rather, that some of the things that

>may lead to appestat dysfunction are within conscious control. And, basically,

>everything you mentioned is. I would add to the list overeating beyond

>satiety, which was my original point. That and eating to satiety all day long

>probably both could lead to chronically elevated leptin, which might be, I

>speculate, a cause of leptin resistance.

Yep, I think we basically agree, tho I would think it is the TYPE of food

involved more than culture that is involved. Of course, type of food

is under conscious control too (if you know enough!).

>

Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

Heidi, Heidi, Heidi, those goats and cows are obviously just weak-willed

liberals who have no self control. Stop making excuses for them! ;-)

>So basically I agree with you, overeating can cause " leptin resistance " ,

>but then you have to figure out " why are people suddenly overeating

>so much? " The obvious culprit (since human nature hasn't changed

>much in thousands of years) is the type of food. Goats, for example,

>eat a lot of grass, but they stop when they are full. But they will

>eat themselves to death on oats. Which is more or less the way they

>get beef to get fat quickly ... the beef will gorge on corn where they

>won't on grass. The goat and beef appestat doesn't really handle

>grains.

-

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/13/04 1:33:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

Idol@... writes:

Heidi, Heidi, Heidi, those goats and cows are obviously just weak-willed

liberals who have no self control. Stop making excuses for them! ;-)

_____

~~~~> I know your just making a joke (hehe) but just in case it wasn't clear,

I was NOT suggesting that there are not qualitative issues with food that are

causing appestat problems and was NOT suggesting that the problem lies

exclusively with will power. (I didn't even mean to suggest lack of will power

was

a problem!)

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/13/04 7:39:49 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

christiekeith@... writes:

What are you, some kind of GOAT?

_____

~~~~> You mean the kind of goat that works for a living by providing a

farmer with a product and service in exchange for the payment of feed? Yup!

Sheep work for payment too, but they are more humble. I'm more of a goat,

but God help me, that I might be more of a sheep before the end of life's road,

that I might end up on the right hand of the son of God asking what I ever did

to receive such a reward.

:-)

Chris

[Guest guest]

>> (I didn't even mean to suggest lack of will power was

a problem!) <<

What are you, some kind of GOAT?

Christie

[Guest guest]

>> Sheep work for payment too, but they are more humble. I'm more of a

goat,

but God help me, that I might be more of a sheep before the end of life's

road,

that I might end up on the right hand of the son of God asking what I ever

did

to receive such a reward. <<

Baaaaaaaaaaaaah humbug.

Christie

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/13/04 8:58:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

christiekeith@... writes:

Baaaaaaaaaaaaah humbug.

______

~~~~~> Dear Ms. Scrooge, ( :-) )

Is there any fault in the values of altruism and humility?

Chris

[Guest guest]

>> Is there any fault in the values of altruism and humility? <<

No, you're right, I'm wrong ....

Sheepishly yours,

Christie