Health Tips

The Ancestral Health Society just posted a video of my recent talk "What Causes Leptin Resistance?"  Follow the link below to access it.  Enjoy!

What Causes Leptin Resistance?

For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Dr. John McDougall is a doctor and diet/health advocate who recommends a very low fat, high starch, whole food vegan diet to control weight and avoid chronic disease. He's been at it for a long time, and he's a major figure in the "plant-based diet" community (i.e., a diet including little or no animal foods).

Dr. McDougall invited me to participate in his 3-day Advanced Study Weekend retreat in Santa Rosa, CA. My job was to give my talk on insulin and obesity, and participate in a panel discussion/debate with Dr. McDougall in which we sorted through issues related to low-carb, Paleo, and the health implications of eating animal foods. I was glad to receive the invitation, because I don't see myself as a diet partisan, and I believe that my evidence-based information is applicable to a variety of diet styles. I saw the Weekend as an opportunity to extend my thoughts to a new community, challenge myself, and maybe even learn a thing or two. It was particularly interesting to compare and contrast the Advanced Study Weekend with the Ancestral Health Symposium, which is more Paleo- and low-carb-friendly.

General Observations

The attendees were a lot older than AHS attendees. I estimate that most of them were in their 60s, although there were some young people in attendance.

I don't place too much emphasis on peoples' personal appearance at conferences like this. You don't know what a person's background, genetics, or personal struggles may be, you don't know how closely they adhere to the program, and you don't know to what degree a group of people might be self-selected for particular traits*. But I will note that Dr. McDougall, his family, and many of the other starch-based/plant-based diet advocates tended to be extremely lean with low fat and muscle mass. They also tended to have a healthy and energetic appearance and demeanor. As I would expect, decades of exceptionally high starch intake hasn't made them obese or obviously ill.

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I have two talks planned over the next two months.  Hope to see you there!

Ancestral Health Symposium 2014: UC Berkeley, August 7-9

If you want to understand the most rigorous science available on leptin resistance-- a key mechanism of obesity and a major barrier to fat loss-- this talk is for you.  This is my primary area of professional expertise; I have years of firsthand research experience on the subject and I've published a number of related papers in peer-reviewed journals.  The talk will be accessible to nearly all levels of expertise.  AHS14 tickets are available here.  I've pasted the talk's abstract below.

What Causes Leptin Resistance?

Leptin is the primary hormonal regulator of body fatness.  Obese people exhibit a resistance to leptin�s effects in the brain, causing the brain to oppose fat loss by multiple mechanisms.  Research in animal models suggests that leptin resistance may be required for obesity to develop.  How does leptin resistance occur, and what causes it?  Research has not yet provided us with definitive answers, but several plausible possibilities have emerged.  This talk will review what is known about leptin resistance and its causes.

McDougall Advanced Study Weekend: Santa Rosa, CA, September 5-7

Dr. John McDougall invited me to speak at his yearly symposium after viewing my TEDx talk "The American Diet: a Historical Perspective".  I look forward to sharing my thoughts and interacting with a different audience than I'm used to.  The talk will be an expanded version of the one I presented at AHS13.  Tickets are available here.  I've pasted a modified version of my AHS13 abstract below.

Insulin and Obesity: Reconciling Conflicting Evidence

The pancreatic hormone insulin regulates the trafficking and metabolism of carbohydrate and fat, and its secretion is particularly stimulated by carbohydrate and protein.  Since circulating insulin is elevated in common obesity, and insulin influences fatty acid flux into and out of fat tissue, this has raised the possibility that elevated insulin causes common obesity, and that dietary carbohydrate is particularly fattening.  A large amount of evidence appears to support the hypothesis that insulin causes obesity, and a large amount of evidence appears to falsify it.  This presentation will outline a framework capable of reconciling this seemingly conflicting evidence.

This Friday, I'll be giving an invited lecture at the University of Virginia, my undergraduate alma mater.  I was kindly invited by a medical student named Robert Abbott, and it worked out well because I was already traveling to Charlottesville.

The talk will be titled "Why Do We Overeat?  A Neurobiological Perspective".  Here's the teaser:

Obesity is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in industrialized nations, yet this is a relatively recent phenomenon.  In the United States, increasing obesity prevalence has paralleled a gradual increase of daily energy intake.  Why do most Americans eat more than we used to, and more than we need to maintain a lean state, despite negative consequences?  This presentation will touch on the neurobiology of action selection, the neurobiology of energy homeostasis, and why our central nervous system hardware may not be up to the task of constructively navigating the modern food environment.

The talk will be attended by medical students, but I also hope to have some doctors and researchers show up, as well as people from the broader Charlottesville community.  It will be a thought-provoking talk regardless of your background, and it will touch on some of my own work.

The talk will be held in the main medical school auditorium, MEB 3110, on Friday, January 17 at noon.  You can find driving directions and parking information by following this link.  You'll probably have to park in a parking garage, either the Lee Street or Central Grounds garage (directions in the link).

For a map of the UVA health system, follow this link.  The Medical Education Building is number 44 on the map, and the talk will be in room MEB 3110 on the 3rd floor of the building.

See you there!

Smarter Science of Slim

Jonathan Bailor recently released an interview we did a few months ago on the neurobiology of body fat regulation, and the implications for fat loss.  It's a good overview of the regulation of food intake and body fatness by the brain.  You can listen to it here.

Super Human Radio

Carl Lanore interviewed me about my lab's work on hypothalamic inflammation and obesity.  I'm currently wrapping up a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Michael Schwartz at the University of Washington, and the interview touches on our recent review paper "Hypothalamic Inflammation: Marker or Mechanism of Obesity Pathogenesis?"  Dan Pardi and I are frequent guests on Carl's show and I'm always impressed by how well Carl prepares prior to the interview.  You can listen to the interview here.

The Reality Check podcast

Pat Roach of the Reality Check podcast interviewed me about the scientific validity of the "carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis" of obesity.  The Reality Check podcast "explores a wide range of controversies and curiosities using science and critical thinking", and a dash of humor.  This one should be very informative for people who aren't sure what to believe and want a deeper perspective on the science of insulin and body weight regulation.  You can listen to it here.

Obesity Society conference

Next Thursday 11/9, I'll be speaking at the 2013 Obesity Society conference in Atlanta.  My talk is titled "The Glial Response to Obesity is Reversible", and it will be about my work on the reversibility of obesity-associated hypothalamic neuropathology in mice.  My talk will be part of the session "Neuronal Control of Satiety" between 3:00 and 4:30, specific time pending.  See you there!

My friend Pedro Bastos graciously invited me to speak at a conference he organized in Lisbon on October 5 titled "Food, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases".  I will give two talks:

• "Ancestral Health: What is Our Human Potential?"  This talk will explore the health of non-industrial cultures in an effort to understand how much of our modern chronic disease burden is preventable, and it will briefly touch on one major aspect of non-industrial life that may protect against the "diseases of civilization".  This presentation will focus on age-adjusted data from high quality studies.  
• "Why Do We Overeat: a Neurobiological Perspective."  This talk will attempt to explain why most of us consume more calories than we need to maintain weight-- a phenomenon that is a central cause of morbidity and mortality in the modern world.  It will touch on some of the brain mechanisms involved in ingestive behavior, and outline a framework to explain why these mechanisms are often maladaptive in today's environment.

For those who are attending the Ancestral Health Symposium this year, my talk will be at 9:00 AM on Saturday.  The title is "Insulin and Obesity: Reconciling Conflicting Evidence", and it will focus on the following two questions:

1. Does elevated insulin cause obesity; does obesity cause elevated insulin; or both?
2. Is there a unifying hypothesis that's able to explain all of the seemingly conflicting evidence cited by each side of the debate?

I'll approach the matter in true scientific fashion: stating hypotheses, making rational predictions based on those hypotheses, and seeing how well the evidence matches the predictions.  I'll explore the evidence in a way that has never been done before (to my knowledge), even on this blog.

Why am I giving this talk?  Two reasons.  First, it's an important question that has implications for the prevention and treatment of obesity, and it has received a lot of interest in the ancestral health community and to some extent among obesity researchers.  Second, I study the mechanisms of obesity professionally, I'm wrapping up a postdoc in a lab that has focused on the role of insulin in body fatness (lab of Dr. Michael W. Schwartz), and I've thought about this question a lot over the years-- so I'm in a good position to speak about it.

The talk will be accessible and informative to almost all knowledge levels, including researchers, physicians, and anyone who knows a little bit about insulin.  I'll cover most of the basics as we go.  I guarantee you'll learn something, whatever your knowledge level.

The 2013 Ancestral Health Symposium will be held in Atlanta, GA, August 14-17.  Last year was a great conference, and I look forward to more informative talks and networking.  Tickets go fast, so reserve yours now if you plan to attend!

This year, I'll be speaking on insulin and obesity.  My talk will be titled "Insulin and Obesity: Reconciling Conflicting Evidence".  In this talk, I'll present the evidence for and against the idea that elevated insulin contributes to the development of obesity.  One hypothesis states that elevated insulin contributes to obesity, while the other states that elevated insulin is caused by obesity and does not contribute to it.  Both sides of the debate present evidence that appears compelling, and it often seems like each side is talking past the other rather than trying to incorporate all of the evidence into a larger, more powerful model.

There's a lot evidence that can be brought to bear on this question, but much of it hasn't reached the public yet.  I'll explore a broad swath of evidence from clinical case studies, observational studies, controlled trials, animal research, physiology, and cell biology to test the two competing hypotheses and outline a model that can explain all of the seemingly conflicting data.  Much of this information hasn't appeared on this blog.  My goal is to put together a talk that will be informative to a researcher but also accessible to an informed layperson.

On a separate note, my AHS12 talk "Digestive Health, Inflammation and the Metabolic Syndrome" has not been posted online because the video recording of my talk has mysteriously disappeared.  I think many WHS readers would be interested in the talk, since it covers research on the important and interdependent influence of gut health, inflammation, and psychological stress on the metabolic syndrome (the quintessential modern metabolic disorder).  I'm going to try to find time to make a narrated slideshow so I can post it on YouTube.