The Obesogen Effect by Bruce Blumberg & Kristin Loberg

Author:Bruce Blumberg & Kristin Loberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Health & Fitness / Body Cleansing & Detoxification, Science / Life Sciences / Cell Biology, Health & Fitness / Diet & Nutrition / Weight Loss, Health & Fitness / Diseases / Endocrine System, Medical / Toxicology
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2018-03-13T04:00:00+00:00

WHEN WE EAT IS AT LEAST AS IMPORTANT AS WHAT WE EAT

Satchidananda Panda is a professor in the Regulatory Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He has worked extensively on the circadian clock, especially as it relates with our genes, microbiome, eating patterns, risk for weight gain, and even our immune system. One of his most important discoveries showed how light sensors in the eyes work to keep the rest of the body on schedule. The hypothalamus is the part of our brains that links the nervous and endocrine systems—it regulates many of the autonomic functions of our body, particularly metabolism. The suprachiasmatic nuclei in the hypothalamus receive input directly from these light sensors in the retinas of our eyes and serve to “reset” our circadian clock. This is why exposure to early morning light helps reset the circadian clock and explains why getting out into the morning sun can help to recalibrate your clock after a late night or from jet lag.

No doubt you have read in many diet books that it is best to eat small meals throughout the day rather than three larger meals. This is an example of something that seems to make sense (frequent small meals are thought to prevent hunger pangs) but that actual experiments showed to be completely false. Strikingly, Panda and his colleagues found that mice consuming their calories within a set amount of time (twelve hours) were slimmer and healthier than those that ate the same number of calories but over a larger time window.159 Put another way, the periodic fasting between meals, followed by a longer period of fasting during the sleep period, made mice leaner and healthier than mice that consumed the same number of calories throughout twenty-four hours. But why? We don’t fully understand how a time-based eating pattern can prevent weight gain and illness, but Panda and his colleagues think that the timing of meals influences the circadian clock, which in turn affects the function of genes that are involved with metabolism.

The microbiome also has diurnal cycles that play an important role here. Panda has done extensive work on how the gut bacteria wax and wane throughout the day and how such variations hinge on day and night cues. In one very important study, he and his colleagues compared the microbiomes of mice fed normal food with those given high-fat fare. They measured the composition of the gut microbiome every four hours, rather than taking a snapshot once a day. In the mice on normal diets (that ate during the night and slept during the day), Panda documented dramatic fluctuations in the particular genera of bacteria present at any given time. In the mice that ate a high-fat diet and generally fed around the clock, however, not only did their microbiomes not fluctuate, but these mice gained weight and developed diabetes.160 These patterns were evident among multiple species of bacteria, including Firmicutes, a type of bacteria that has been associated with obesity and disease in multiple studies around the world.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.