Why do we get fat

Chapter 25 Let's Eat!Get fat!And I'm watching you from the side (1)
"Oh, dear!" cried all the readers, male and female, "oh, by heaven! The professor is such a jerk, that when he says that, our favorite foods are forbidden. Those white breads , biscuits, hundreds of delicious pastries made of flour and butter, flour and sugar, flour and sugar and eggs! Not even potatoes and noodles are left for us to eat! It's not an act!"

"Is that what I've heard?" I cried, serious, maybe just once in a year, "That's great. Go eat! Get fat! Be an ugly, vulgar, walking All panting and dying in your own melted fat. And I'm standing there watching you."

——Jean-Anthelme Briat-Savarin
(Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1825)

Born in 1755, Jean-Anthelme Briat-Savarin was first a lawyer and later a politician.However, he was fond of eating and drinking, which he called the "pleasures" of the table. In the 18s, he wrote his views on food, The Philosopher in the Kitchen (literally, Physiology of Taste).He died of pneumonia two months later, but "The Philosopher in the Kitchen" remains a bestseller.Briat-Savarin wrote emphatically: "Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are like."

Chapter 30 of "The Philosopher in the Kitchen" states that over the past 30 years, he has had more than 500 conversations with fellow diners who were "threatened and tortured by obesity." One by one, the "fats" declared their favorites to be bread, rice, pasta and potatoes.This led Briat-Savarin to conclude that the roots of obesity are obvious.One reason is the natural factors that are easy to gain weight. "Some people's digestion can 'make' more fat, so to speak, these people are destined to be fat." The second reason is the starch and flour that people use as a daily basis. "When starch and sugar are eaten together, it is more certain that you will gain weight rapidly."

Of course, this book also talks about the way to lose weight completely: "Only relying on grains and starches will cause excess fat, which is as obvious in humans as in animals... and a definite result can be deduced-as long as more or less restraint Anything from starches to flours, you lose weight."

As suggested earlier, we're going to go back and forth on this weight loss discussion.Everything I've said so far seems uninspired, including the idea that sugar causes obesity and that moderation of starches, flour, and sugar is the best way to lose weight.Briat-Savarin wrote down ideas that have been repeated and refined ever since.Until the 20s, it was the traditional view that our parents or grandparents believed deeply.Then the idea of ​​calorie balance began to take root, and the Briat-Savarin hypothesis and other similar weight-loss methods were painted by health authorities as fads and dangerous ones. "Fantastic concepts of nutrition and diet" - that's how the American Medical Association described them in 60.

In this way, the authorities have successfully prevented many people from trying these diets and doctors from recommending or supporting their use.Dean Ornish, a doctor famous for his diet of opposite nutritional content (low fat, high sugar), likes this analogy when he talks about this: eating something that is not good for our health Things like cigarettes and nicotine can also help you lose weight, but that by no means means we should.

This has been a puzzling development in the science of diet and nutrition for the last century.Sugar makes people fat has been the prevailing concept in the past nearly 200 years.For example, let's look at two famous novels published a century apart.In Leo Tolstoy's 19th-century "Anna Karenina," Count Vronsky, Anna's lover, is cutting out sugar in preparation for the top horse races. "On the day of the Krasnoye Selo match, Vronsky came earlier than usual to eat steak in the regimental officer's mess. He didn't need serious training because he lost all his weight very quickly. He needed 72 kg. But he still had to avoid gaining weight and avoid starchy foods and desserts." In 1964, Saul Bellow wrote "Herzog", in which Herzog thought Said: "I have already spent money to buy new clothes. If I eat sugar, the clothes won't fit."

From the literature, it reflects what the prevailing opinion of doctors in society at that time told obese people.The era of doctors disbelieving the idea began in the 20s and concluded in the late 60s—which coincided with the rampant rise of obesity and diabetes.

Given that our doctors have decided that "avoiding sugar to lose weight" is a quaint concept, I'm going to look back at the entire history of the idea and figure it out in its entirety.

In the early 20th century, doctors generally believed that obesity was a disease, and one with few cures.To deal with this disease, like dealing with cancer, it is reasonable to take any effective measures, including guiding patients to eat less and move more, which is also one of many considered measures.

The 1869 edition of The Practice of Medicine published a long list of "ridiculous" treatments by the British physician Thomas Tanner, all of which were prescribed by doctors of the era for the obese.Including all sorts of surreal methods—for example, “jugular bleeding” and “putting a leech in the anus,” as well as methods in line with today’s views—for example, “eat very small amounts of digestible food” and “ Spend a few hours a day walking or cycling."

"All of these weight-loss programs, even if you stick to them, don't get you where you want to go. Simply dieting, that's what happens." However, Tanner firmly believes that eating less sugar is one way, possibly the only way. "Floured (starchy) foods and vegetable products are fattening; cloyingly sweet things like sugar are even more so."

At that time, the French physician Jean-Francois Dancel came to the same conclusion as Briat-Savarin. In 1844, Danser presented his views on obesity to the French Academy of Sciences and published Obesity and Overweight: Various Causes and Rational Treatments.The book was translated into English in 1864.Dansey declared that he could cure obesity if he could lead his patients to "rely mainly on meat, with a small amount of other foodstuffs".

Densey argues that the reason doctors of his day believed obesity was incurable was that they prescribed the very same foods that caused obesity (though this book does not agree entirely). "The medical authorities have decided that food has the most important relation to the development of obesity," he wrote, "and they forbid the obese to eat meat, and recommend watery vegetables, such as spinach, rhubarb, green salads, and fruits; as for drinks, They say drink as little as possible. I don't take these words as an axiom, and my opinion runs counter to centuries of accepted common sense that some very important foods, like meat, don't form Fat is no more likely to cause obesity than vegetables."

Dense's meat-based diet is based on the work of German chemist Justus Liebig.At that time, Liebig pointed out that the fat in animals does not come from protein, but is produced due to the intake of fat, starch and sugar. "All non-meat foods, all foods rich in carbon and hydrogen (i.e., sugars), must have a tendency to produce fat," Dansey wrote, "and obesity can be treated with satisfactory results if only these principles are followed. ’” Dansey, like Briat-Savarin and others, has noted that carnivores are not obese; whereas herbivores that live exclusively on plants are mostly obese. "Hippos, for example," Dansey writes, "have a lot of fat on their bodies, and all they eat is grain vegetables—rice, millet, sugar cane, etc."

In 1856, British physician William Harvey visited Paris to hear a lecture on diabetes by the legendary Claude Bernard.After that, he completely reinvented the weight loss diet of the time.Later, Harvey said of this hearing that Bernard described precisely how the liver secretes glucose, the "carbohydrates" (i.e. sugars) found in both sugars and starches, and the abnormalities in the blood of diabetics. High glucose levels.This led Harvey to speculate that a sugar-free, starch-free diet might reduce abnormally high blood glucose levels and perhaps also be used as a weight-loss diet.

Harvey wrote: "We also know that diets fortified with grains are used to fatten some animals. I recognize that excess fat may be involved in the etiology of diabetes. Combining diets with low-fat, non-starchy vegetables has the potential to prevent excess fat production."

In August 1862, Harvey gave William Banting of London a recipe for obesity (I have introduced Banting in a previous chapter).By May of the following year, Banting had lost 8kg (he ended up losing 5kg).This prompted him to publish the 15-page "Letters on Obesity", which reviewed how his efforts to lose weight were in vain. He managed to lose weight without much effort. (We see, however, that Banting's recipes also included a fair amount of alcohol—four or five glasses of wine per day, cordial in the morning, and gin, whiskey, or brandy in the evening.)
Banting wrote in the book: "Bread, butter, milk, sugar, potatoes and beer, these have always been my main food for survival. I have enjoyed these foods freely at any time for many years. My Good weight loss consultants say that these starchy and sugary things are fat producing and should be given up. Then I noticed that I didn't seem to have anything left to eat. I blushed. But my kind friend immediately gave I pumped up a lot and I thought I would be more than happy to give it a go. It's only been a few days and I've benefited a lot."

Banting's "Letters on Obesity" became an instant bestseller. In the fall of 1864, even the French emperor "tried Banting's method of reducing weight, and benefited greatly from it."Banting popularized Harvey's recipe, but came under pressure from the medical community.The British medical journal The Lancet wrote: "We urge Mr Banting and others like him to refrain from meddling in medicine and to remember his own business."

But in 1866, the Internal Medicine Congress was held in Berlin. At the special meeting on public diet, the "Banting diet" was recognized as one of the three methods that could be used to lose weight at that time.The other two are similar approaches proposed by German doctors -- one calls for a high-fat diet, the other calls for eating lean meats and exercising a lot.What these approaches all have in common is that neither restricts meat intake, but almost completely bans starches and sweets.

In 1957, Hilde Bruch also revisited this history.She noticed -- over the past few decades, obesity trends have not improved significantly.For the past 40 years, authorities have been suppressing this resurgence of ideas.Today, you probably have a hard time imagining how widely accepted this concept was.

In "Principles and Practice of Medicine" published in 1901, William Osler, the father of modern North American medicine, advised obese women: "Don't eat too much food, especially reduce the intake of starch and table sugar."

In 1907, James French published his "Practical Textbook of Medicine" in which he said: "The overnutrition of obese people is caused partly by the fat in food, but much more by sugar."

(End of this chapter)