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A team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators has found a possible mechanism explaining why use of the sugar substitute aspartame might not promote weight loss. In their report published online in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, the researchers show how the aspartame breakdown product phenylalanine interferes with the action of an enzyme previously shown to prevent metabolic syndrome -- a group of symptoms associated with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. They also showed that mice receiving aspartame in their drinking water gained more weight and developed other symptoms of metabolic syndrome than animals fed similar diets lacking aspartame.
"Sugar substitutes like aspartame are designed to promote weight loss and decrease the incidence of metabolic syndrome, but a number of clinical and epidemiologic studies have suggested that these products don't work very well and may actually make things worse," says Richard Hodin, MD, of the MGH Department of Surgery, the study's senior author. "We found that aspartame blocks a gut enzyme called intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP) that we previously showed can prevent obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome; so we think that aspartame might not work because, even as it is substituting for sugar, it blocks the beneficial aspects of IAP."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday November 27 2016, @04:06AM
But at that time, 'sedentary' lifestyles were mostly like now..living in the 'burbs', driving to the mall, eating burgers and cola at the diner..
While I agree with you that there's a lot of bad stuff in processed food, and it is likely a factor in growing obesity, I just can't agree with a statement like this. First off, the percentage of sedentary jobs was much smaller in the 1950s than today. Not everyone was doing "hard labor," but you can burn several hundred calories per day even at a less laborious job where you aren't sitting at a desk all day.
And calories can add up to quite a bit over time. Say a person is 50 pounds overweight and got there over a period of 10 years. That's 5 pounds per year, or about 1/10 of a pound per week. While calories don't exactly convert to pounds of fat, that's roughly 50 extra calories per day. That's NOT a lot, and the amount of "exercise" to make up for it could easily fall in the difference between people who used to have jobs that required them to move around (even a bit) vs. people who sit at desks all day. Heck, even better heating and air conditioning since then could make a difference in calorie expenditures at those small orders of magnitude.
And as for "eating burgers and cola at the diner" -- Coke bottles until 1955 were ONLY available in 6.5 ounce size. Seriously. In 1955, they introduced "king size," which at that point was 10 and eventually 12 ounces... the latter of course is the size of our standard can today. But how many of those do you think it would take to equal one "super size big gulp" or whatever today??
Same can be said about just about any other "standard" portion sizes from the time. There was only one size of fries available at McDonalds, which was 2.4 ounces. Today's "small" is 2.6 ounces; the large is about 2.5 times that size. Studies that have actually looked into this stuff estimate that average restaurant meal portion sizes are 3-4 times as large today as they were in the 1950s. And there are plenty of studies showing the effect of serving size on how much people eat -- basically, you put more food there, people eat more. People get used to eating more at one meal, and they want more at others too.
Again, I'm all for eating simpler and less processed foods. But I'm pretty sure there are some other significant lifestyle differences compared to the 1950s.