Ésta es la cuestión singular más importante en cuanto a obesidad. Es imposible tratar adecuadamente cualquier enfermedad sin tener alguna comprensión de su causa(su etiología).
Por ejemplo, si usted entiende que la causa de las infecciones son las bacterias, entonces puede tomar como objetivo las bacterias en su tratamiento. Esto conduce al lavado de manos como opuesto, por así decir a usar sanguijuelas.
Entonces, cómo aumentamos de peso – o más científicamente – cuál es la etiología de la obesidad?
Ésa es la pregunta que nosotros deberíamos estar haciendo. Sin embargo, se dedica muy poco tiempo a esta cuestión sumamente importante porque sentimos que ya conocemos la respuesta. Es una cuestión de calorías entrantes versus calorías salientes, decimos. Comer demasiado y hacer demasiado poco ejercicio causa la obesidad, decimos. Mantenemos estas verdades como siendo tan evidentes por sí mismas que ni siquiera por un minute cuestionamos su veracidad.
También consideramos que la razón de que comamos demasiado o nos movamo demasiado poco es por elección personal. O sea, elegimos qué ponemos en nuestras bocas y por lo tanto somos responsables por lo que comemos. Podríamos haber comido broccoli en lugar de esa bolsa de papas chips. Podríamos haber corrido una hora en vez de mirar TV.
La Opinión de Experto
En otras palabras, la obesidad es considerada normalmente una falla personal – la causa de la obesidad yace en lo individual. Comer demasiado(gula) o moverse demasiado poco(pereza) son fallas personales – de hecho, 2 de los 7 pecados capitales.
Si les preguntamos a los “expertos”, ellos están de acuerdo en que la clave de la pérdida de peso es comer menos y moverse más.
Consenso santo, Batman.
Con tantos “expertos” desde Michelle Obama a la USDA(Departamento de Agricultura de los EEUU: N del T.) hasta virtualmente todos los profesionales medicos(incusive doctores y dietistas) acordando que “Comer Menos, Moverse más” es el camino a seguir, usted podría pensar de que ésto es incuestionablemente verdad al 100%.
Pero aquí tenemos un pensamiento extraño…si todos estamos de acuerdo que conocemos la cura de la obesidad, y hemos gastado miles de millones en educación y programas – porqué estamos quedando más gordos?
En otras palabras, porqué esta “cura” suena tan mal?
Repasemos: Si la causa de la obesidad es comer demasiado y hacer demasiado poco ejercicio, podemos pensar en la obesidad de esta manera: Teoría Convencional de la Obesidad Yo le llamo a esto la hipótesis de la Reducción Calórica como Primaria(CRaP en inglés, N. del T.). Ésto significa que el factor primario(pero no el único) factor en la obesidad es cantidad de calorías y reduciéndolo es lo principal del tratamiento.
Más aún, la razón detrás de comer demasiado no es hormonal, no hambre, sino elección personal.
También puede ser llamado el modelo de “Calorías entrants, Calorías salientes”(CICO en inglés, N. del T.), y es a menudo delineada como una escala. Las calorías no utilizadas en el ejercicio seran depositadas como grasa. De acuerdo a esta visión de la obesidad podemos pensar en un deposito de grasa de esta manera: Depósito de Grasa = Calorías entrantes – Calorías salientes.
Es el desequilibrio de calorías que produce al tiempo la acumuación de grasa. Es a menudo llamada la “Primera Ley de la Termodinámica” – la energía no puede ser creada ni destruída en un sistema aislado. Esto hace que las cosas suenen muy a ciencia-y y evoque el pensamiento de Einstein pero la termodinámica tiene aproximadamente cero que ver con la biología humana. El cuerpo humano no es un sistema aislado. La energía entra y sale todo el tiempo, Es un sistema abierto así que por eso la termodinámica no se aplica de ninguna manera. Ni la Segunda ni la Tercera Ley de Termodinámica se aplica a seres humanos u otras criaturas vivas tampoco, entonces porqué iba a aplicarse la Primera Ley?
La respuesta es que no lo hace, y la gente sólo la usa para darle a su teoría favorita un apariencia científica. Yo quiero decir que yo no aplico el Principio de Indeterminación de Heisenberg a mis cereales de desayuno, no? Entonces porqué se iba a aplicar la Primera Ley de Termodinámica a la obesidad? No lo hace.
Si el peso corporal es estable, entonces las calorías ingeridas están balanceadas por las calorías utilizadas por el cuerpo. Pero no podemos controlar como el cuerpo usa estas calorías. Por ejemplo, si consumimos 2000 calorías de energía, aquellas 2000 calorías pueden tener destinos metabólicos muy diferentes. Esas calorías son quemadas como calor(Gasto Restante de Energía), usadas en la producción de proteínas/huesos/músculos nuevos, usadas en ejercicio/ despliegue físico, o depositadas como grasa?
No nos importa si la energía es quemada como calor, pero SÍ nos importa si es depositada como grasa. Más aún, las “Calorías Salientes” no es una cantidad fija. Puede subir a 3000 calorías/día in algunas personas o bajar a 1200 calorías/día en otros. Pero podemos readaptar la ecuación de esta manera: Calorías entrantes = Depósito de Grasa + Calorías salientes.
Si suponemos de vuelta que “Calorías Salientes” es fijo y nunca cambia (falso), entonces la implicación aquí es que “Calorías Entrantes” depende del Depósito de Grasa. Ésto significa que la cantidad que comemos está determinada o no por si estamos en el modo “Depósito de Grasa”.
Ésto ahora nos conduce a hacer la pregunta correct – Qué está causando que nosotros estemos en el modo de Depósito de Grasa?
En otras palabras “Estamos comiendo demasiado porque estamos quedando gordos”. Ésto pide la pregunta apropiada “Porqué estamos quedando gordos” o “Cuál es la etiología de la obesidad?” – la causa raíz de la obesidad, diabetes, enfermedad cardíaca, el cáncer y la mayoría de las así llamadas enfermedades de la civilización.
Dr. Jason Fung
Extraído de correspondencia del Dr. Fung para su programa IDM(Tratamiento Dietario Intensivo)
Traduccion de Ricardo Ferré
How Do We Gain Weight? – Chapter 1
This is the single most important question in obesity. It is impossible to adequately treat any disease without having some understanding of the cause (the aetiology). For
instance, if you understand the cause of infections to be bacteria, then you can target bacteria in its treatment. This leads to hand-washing as opposed to, say, leeching. So, how do we gain weight – or more scientifically- what is the aetiology of obesity?
That is the question we should be asking. However, very little time is spent considering this all-important question because we feel that we already know the answer. It is a matter of calories in versus calories out, we say. Eating too much and exercising too little causes obesity, we say. We hold these truths to be so self-evident that we do not even for a minute question their truth. We also consider that the reason we
eat too much or move too little is because of personal choice. That is, we choose what we put in our mouths and therefore are responsible for what we eat. We could have eaten broccoli instead of that bag of chips. We could have run for an hour instead of watch TV.
Expert Opinion
In other words, obesity is commonly considered a personal
failing – the cause of obesity lies in the individual. Eating too much(gluttony) or moving too little (sloth) are individual failings – in fact, 2 of the 7 deadly sins.
If we ask the ‘experts’, they agree that the key to weight loss is eating less and moving more.
Holy consensus, Batman.
With so many ‘experts’ from Michelle Obama to the USDA to
virtually all of the medical professionals (including doctors and dieticians) agreeing that ‘Eat Less, Move More’ is the way to go, you might think that it is 100% unquestionably true.
But here’s a queer thought… if we all agree that we know the cure for obesity, and we’ve spent billions on educations and programs – why are we getting fatter?
In other words, why does this ‘cure’ suck so bad? Let’s back up. If the cause of obesity is eating too much and exercising too little, we can think about obesity in this way: Conventional Theory of Obesity I
call this the Caloric Reduction as Primary (CRaP) hypothesis. This means that the primary (but not the only) factor in obesity is calories and reducing calories is the mainstay of treatment.
Furthermore, the reason behind eating too much is not hormonal, not hunger, but personal choice. It can also be called the “Calories in, Calories out” model (CICO), and is often depicted as a scale.
Calories not used in exercise will be deposited as fat. According to this view of obesity we can think of fat storage this way: Fat Storage = Calories in – Calories out
It is the imbalance of calories that lead over time to the accumulation of fat. It is often called the ‘First
Law of Thermodynamics‘ – energy can neither be created or destroyed in an isolated system. This make things sound very science-y and evokes thought of Einstein but thermodynamics has approximately zero to do
with human biology.
The human body is not an isolated system.
Energy comes in and goes out all the time. It is an open system so therefore thermodynamics does not apply in any manner.
Neither the Second nor Third Law of Thermodynamics applies to human beings or other living creatures either, so why should the First Law apply?
The answer is that it does not, and people only use it to give their pet theory a scientific veneer.
I mean, I don’t apply Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle to my breakfast cereal do I?
So why should the First Law of Thermodynamics apply to obesity?
It doesn’t.
If body weight is stable, then calories eaten is balanced by the calories utilized by the body. But we cannot control how the body uses these calories. For example, if we consume 2000 calories of energy, those 2000 calories can have
very different metabolic fates. Are those calories burned as heat(Resting Energy Expenditure), used in production of new protein/ bone/lean muscle, used in exercise/ physical exertion, or deposited as fat?
We don’t mind if energy is burned as heat, but we DO mind if it is deposited as fat.
Furthermore, the “Calories Out” is not a fixed
number. It can go up to 3000 calories/day in some people and down to 1200 calories/day in others. It can also change depending on what we eat.
But we can re-arrange the equation in this way:
Calories in = Fat Storage + Calories out If we assume again that “Calories Out” is fixed and never changes (false), then the implication here is that “Calories in” depends on Fat Storage.
The means that the amount we eat is determined by whether or not we are in “Fat Storage” mode. This now
sets us up to ask the correct question – What is causing us to be in Fat Storage mode? In other words “We are eating too much because we are getting fat”. That begs the proper question “Why are we getting fat?” or “What is the aetiology of obesity?” – the root cause of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and most of the so-called diseases of civilization.
Dr. Jason Fung
This is the single most important question in obesity. It is impossible to adequately treat any disease without having some understanding of the cause (the aetiology). For
instance, if you understand the cause of infections to be bacteria, then you can target bacteria in its treatment. This leads to hand-washing as opposed to, say, leeching. So, how do we gain weight – or more scientifically- what is the aetiology of obesity?
That is the question we should be asking. However, very little time is spent considering this all-important question because we feel that we already know the answer. It is a matter of calories in versus calories out, we say. Eating too much and exercising too little causes obesity, we say. We hold these truths to be so self-evident that we do not even for a minute question their truth. We also consider that the reason we
eat too much or move too little is because of personal choice. That is, we choose what we put in our mouths and therefore are responsible for what we eat. We could have eaten broccoli instead of that bag of chips. We could have run for an hour instead of watch TV.
Expert Opinion
In other words, obesity is commonly considered a personal
failing – the cause of obesity lies in the individual. Eating too much(gluttony) or moving too little (sloth) are individual failings – in fact, 2 of the 7 deadly sins.
If we ask the ‘experts’, they agree that the key to weight loss is eating less and moving more.
Holy consensus, Batman.
With so many ‘experts’ from Michelle Obama to the USDA to
virtually all of the medical professionals (including doctors and dieticians) agreeing that ‘Eat Less, Move More’ is the way to go, you might think that it is 100% unquestionably true.
But here’s a queer thought… if we all agree that we know the cure for obesity, and we’ve spent billions on educations and programs – why are we getting fatter?
In other words, why does this ‘cure’ suck so bad? Let’s back up. If the cause of obesity is eating too much and exercising too little, we can think about obesity in this way: Conventional Theory of Obesity I
call this the Caloric Reduction as Primary (CRaP) hypothesis. This means that the primary (but not the only) factor in obesity is calories and reducing calories is the mainstay of treatment.
Furthermore, the reason behind eating too much is not hormonal, not hunger, but personal choice. It can also be called the “Calories in, Calories out” model (CICO), and is often depicted as a scale.
Calories not used in exercise will be deposited as fat. According to this view of obesity we can think of fat storage this way: Fat Storage = Calories in – Calories out
It is the imbalance of calories that lead over time to the accumulation of fat. It is often called the ‘First
Law of Thermodynamics‘ – energy can neither be created or destroyed in an isolated system. This make things sound very science-y and evokes thought of Einstein but thermodynamics has approximately zero to do
with human biology.
The human body is not an isolated system.
Energy comes in and goes out all the time. It is an open system so therefore thermodynamics does not apply in any manner.
Neither the Second nor Third Law of Thermodynamics applies to human beings or other living creatures either, so why should the First Law apply?
The answer is that it does not, and people only use it to give their pet theory a scientific veneer.
I mean, I don’t apply Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle to my breakfast cereal do I?
So why should the First Law of Thermodynamics apply to obesity?
It doesn’t.
If body weight is stable, then calories eaten is balanced by the calories utilized by the body. But we cannot control how the body uses these calories. For example, if we consume 2000 calories of energy, those 2000 calories can have
very different metabolic fates. Are those calories burned as heat(Resting Energy Expenditure), used in production of new protein/ bone/lean muscle, used in exercise/ physical exertion, or deposited as fat?
We don’t mind if energy is burned as heat, but we DO mind if it is deposited as fat.
Furthermore, the “Calories Out” is not a fixed
number. It can go up to 3000 calories/day in some people and down to 1200 calories/day in others. It can also change depending on what we eat.
But we can re-arrange the equation in this way:
Calories in = Fat Storage + Calories out If we assume again that “Calories Out” is fixed and never changes (false), then the implication here is that “Calories in” depends on Fat Storage.
The means that the amount we eat is determined by whether or not we are in “Fat Storage” mode. This now
sets us up to ask the correct question – What is causing us to be in Fat Storage mode? In other words “We are eating too much because we are getting fat”. That begs the proper question “Why are we getting fat?” or “What is the aetiology of obesity?” – the root cause of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and most of the so-called diseases of civilization.
Dr. Jason Fung
